FORVM`s Classical Numismatics Discussion Board
Antiquities Discussion Forums => Ancient Glass => Topic started by: VCollector on April 27, 2019, 06:39:03 pm
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Hello,
Could u say me if this ancient or not? I found 2 articles and see glass rock on the picture like mine
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3533731/Ancient-glassworks-discovered-Israel-Beautiful-pale-green-Judean-tableware-furnace-1-600-years-ago-used-Roman-Empire.html
https://artsandscience.usask.ca/antiquities/collections/items/minden-glass-items/slag-glass/slag-glass.php
http://www.archeolog-home.com/pages/content/mount-carmel-israel-ancient-glass-bracelet-with-menorah-motif.html
Weight: 37.74 gr
length 5 cm
height 3 cm
Thanks.
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It _looks_ similar but short of a chemical analysis, I don't think anyone will be able to tell absolutely. On the other hand, I don't think anyone will be able to definitively say otherwise, either. Does it have "lime stone" deposits like some of the others?" Do you know if it came from Israel (and where in Israel?). There is green volcanic glass (green obsidian) from Central America, but I doubt that it would look like this.
There is a youtube video about a giant glass slab discovered in Israel (12 tons?), they hypothesize (but that is all it is, a hypothesis), that it is a window from the Temple. That may be a little optimistic, but it also may be one of the huge slabs before it got broken up. I would give the name, but I don't know what it would be, I couldn't probably find it again if I wanted to, less than 30-20 minutes.
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Might this be the video you're referring to?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_eDWi46h7o
Craig
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Yes, that is the video I mentioned. It is fairly speculative in considering this huge block of glass a window for the Temple, but it is a heck of huge block of glass which does spur the question of what is it doing there? Maybe this is just a big slab that didn't get broken up, but then again, what is it doing in a Israelite graveyard?
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And as he mentions in the video, it's NOT translucent, so what would be the purpose of having it as a "window", if it isn't going to allow light to pass through? And I've never seen or heard of any descriptions of the temple stating that it had glass windows. And even if it did, you'd would assume they too would have been destroyed when the temple was destroyed.
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Well, they give the quote that they interpret as 'windows,' but I basically agree with your point, there are difficulties with the account given by the video. As far as _a_ window surviving, well that could be the accidents of survival. There is the Derveni ms. which is the oldest book of Europe, you can say 'that is not possible' and yet it happened, the accidents of survival conspired together to preserve this book in a tomb in Greece from the c. 3rd c. BC. If it was a window, and it was in a fire, then it might have been effected by the fire so it is not translucent. But, really, all I am comfortable in saying is that it is a big herkin' slab of glass, and the how and why it is there has not, to me, been satisfactorily explained.
ms.=manuscript, also called Derveni papyrus